Fire From The Sky | Book 11 | Ashes

by Reed, N. C.

  “Thanks,” she looked down, face heating. “I appreciate it.”

  “Keep your head up, kiddo,” the Sheriff ordered. “You’re doing your share and part of another hand. You got nothing to be ashamed of.” With that he walked away, headed for her grandparents, where he was still staying for the moment.

  She wasn’t blushing due to shame, but she couldn’t bring herself to tell him that.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Once more Clay came slowly awake, but this time it was easier, and without the effort to pry his eyes open. The only thing that was the same was the mass of red hair in his face. He smiled, laying still so as not to wake her.

  Two days of enforced rest had indeed been just what the doctor had ordered. He’d eaten better than he had in two weeks, probably, and slept until his body said it was enough instead of just catching an hour on a cot or another hour in a chair, somewhere. He literally felt better than he had in weeks.

  “Morning, Cowboy,” Lainie was suddenly smiling at him sleepily. “How you feeling?”

  “Better,” he promised her. “Much better, in fact. I haven’t felt this good since before Thanksgiving. It’s amazing, really.”

  “Good,” she crawled to where he was laying and kissed him. “I was worried for a minute, babe. You were having memory trouble in addition to almost passing out on your feet. Scared me.”

  “I am truly, deeply sorry for that,” he wrapped his arms around her, kissing her gently. “I didn’t realize how bad it was. I know, you told me,” he pulled one hand back to raise a shield against an ‘I told you so’. “And I wasn’t ignoring you, I just had…there was just so much to do, and I thought I was okay to do it. That’s all it was.”

  “Well, new rule around here, bud,” she told him with mock severity. “When the woman warns you to take it easy for a bit, then you come sit down and take it easy. Eat and rest and then go back at it. Got it?” she poked his chest with her finger. She looked serious but her eyes were shining playfully.

  “I got it, woman,” he smiled and kissed her again. “Promise.”

  “Good.”

  -

  “Well, Clayton, I am really rather surprised at how well you’ve bounced back with just two days of rest,” Jaylyn said finally as she finished his exam. “You were very close to a total collapse, you know.”

  “I do now,” Clay nodded. “Sorry.”

  “It’s nothing to be sorry for, at least not to me,” she shook her head. “Lainie maybe, but for the rest of us, you’re trying to keep us safe and housed and fed and everything else. Still, where would we be if something happened to you? I know there are other competent military leaders around, but what about everything else? With your grandfather gone, you have become the glue that holds all this together.”

  “Hadn’t thought of it that way,” Clay admitted. “That would please the Old Man,” he smiled faintly.

  “Well, I doubt he’d be pleased to see you so run down,” she frowned.

  “No, he wouldn’t,” Clay agreed. “He fussed at me almost as much as Lainie to take better care of myself. And I thought I was,” he shrugged, his hands out to his side, palms up. “I really thought I was. And I didn’t think that I was hitting it any harder than anyone else was, either.”

  “Everyone else gets done with their work and goes home,” she pointed out. “You go do something else, and then something else after that, and then get called back for yet something else before you can make it home. That’s the difference, Clay.”

  “Yeah, that’s what Lainie said,” Clay was nodding. “I just didn’t see it, that’s all.”

  “That isn’t surprising, and you aren’t alone,” she told him. “That’s why you have to depend on others who can see what’s happening to you, even when you can’t. Lainie said she had been after you for at least a week to ease up, rest and eat better. She could see it even before I noticed. Listen to her when she talks, Clay,” Jaylyn urged. “She cares about you a great deal, and you’re the most important thing in her life. She worries over you because she loves you.”

  “I know,” he nodded, looking at the floor. “It wasn’t intentional. Worrying her like that,” he clarified.

  “I know, and I feel sure she does too,” Jaylyn smiled suddenly. “But learn to listen when others tell you that you need rest. Another few hours, a day at most, and you might have been in severe trouble, Clay. And I don’t have the medicines to treat that kind of problem the modern way. You don’t need to develop high blood-pressure on us, or anything else. So learn to take better care, okay?”

  “I promise I will. I promise.”

  -

  “The Great One returns!” Jose smiled tiredly as Clay walked up to him, geared up for work. Jose was outside, about to go and tour the line on an ATV.

  “I do, indeed,” Clay chuckled. “Sorry about leaving you in a lurch, man,” he added.

  “It was worth it to see you finally get some damn rest, my brother,” Jose shook his head. “I’m about to take a look around. Want to come along?”

  “Sure.”

  -

  “It’s been thirty-two hours, roughly, since we’ve seen any traffic on the interstate,” Jose filled him in as they made their way forward. “It slowed gradually to a trickle, stayed that way for maybe six-to-eight hours, then faded to nothing. We haven’t had anyone try to break the quarantine in nearly two days. The downside of that is that we can’t raise Adcock or anyone else by radio. I ordered us to go silent on all but the FRS and GRMS frequencies day before yesterday. We’re monitoring, but not transmitting. I passed the same orders to Gillis, without letting him know they came from me,” he flashed a smile at his Boss, who chuckled.

  “Sounds like a good plan,” Clay nodded. “When was the last time we had news from anyone?”

  “Moving toward seven days, now,” Jose replied. “Gleason and his men are out of quarantine, by the way, and have been a huge help holding the lid down, giving our guys a break they desperately needed. Gillis and his men are four days from being clear themselves and so far, reporting no illnesses of any kind.

  “Sounds good,” Clay nodded. Jose slowed as they neared the far left of their defensive line of vehicles, which was the Gray Ghost. Stacey Pryor saw them and waved from the passenger door. Dismounting, the two moved to where their friend stood, waiting.

  “Greetings, Great One!” Stacey bowed deeply. “Welcome to our small and humble corner of the world!”

  “What’s the good news?” Clay laughed, shaking Stacey’s hand.

  “We are quiet along the…well, the northern front, I guess,” Stacey amended his report with a smile. “That I’ve been made aware of, no one has challenged this area of the defense at all,” he said more seriously.

  “Sounds good,” Clay nodded, looking toward the interstate, which lay beyond the tree line to their east. “Any problems of any kind?”

  “Other than it’s colder than a well digger’s ass in a Montana winter?” Stacey replied. “Not a one so far.”

  “That’s pretty cold, I guess,” Clay laughed. “Okay, then. You got anything?” he looked at Jose.

  “Nope,” was the simple reply. “We’ll move on, I guess,” Jose told Stacey. “Remember to use only the local radio,” he cautioned.

  “Got it, brother.”

  Soon the ATV was traveling south to the next position, this one the Guardian named Cop Car One. Sienna Newell sat atop the vehicle with binoculars in hand, still scanning the tree line for movement. She slid down to the ground when the ATV stopped beside her rig.

  “Well, look who’s back with the living!” she smiled. “Good to have you back, Bossman!”

  “Good to be back, too,” Clay accepted her brief hug. “How are things going?”

  For the next hour, Jose and Clay visited every post along the line, checking with vehicle commanders and ensuring all was well. By the time they were finished, both were pleased with what they had found. They discussed possible future moves on the ride back.

>   “We’ll probably have to erect permanent posts out here,” Jose sighed. “Maybe some hunting blind type structures that we can heat in the winter and open in the summer. Protection from the elements and what not.”

  “Not a bad idea,” Clay nodded slowly. “We probably should have already done it instead of relying on a few foxholes to do the job.”

  “Well, we didn’t have all this other crap going then, you know,” Jose reminded him.

  “That’s true, but we knew we’d have problems,” Clay sat back and crossed his ankles, relaxing in a way that Jose hadn’t seen in a long time. “We can establish a watch line around us on probable threat vectors and then use Operations to do a check in every fifteen minutes or so.”

  “Lonely job, way out here in a phone booth, all alone in the night,” Jose mused.

  “I know,” Clay agreed. “But we can’t afford to be lax, especially now. Even with the flood down the interstate gone, we’re still at risk.”

  “That is true,” Jose agreed. “Well, we have Gleason and his guys, and hopefully we’ll soon have Gillis and his men, too. That will go a long way toward helping us do that.”

  “Yeah.”

  -

  “What’s up, Buttercup?” Zach said as he propped on the side of Amanda’s bed in the infirmary. Kim giggled quietly from behind him, hearing such a sentence from him.

  “Buttercup?” Amanda glowered.

  “You’re right,” Zach held up his hands in supplication. “Absolutely right. That was unforgivable of me. So…how are you, Mavis?”

  “You shithead!” Amanda tried to hit him but failed to make contact, wincing with the effort.

  “Swing! And a miss!” Zach tried to sound like a baseball announcer, smiling as he sat back down. “Okay, seriously now. How are you? Need anything?”

  “To go back and not be so stupid,” Amanda sighed, leaning back and trying to get comfortable. “That’s what I need.”

  “Something we can get you, Amanda,” Kim rolled her eyes playfully.

  “They take good care of me,” Amanda waved a hand toward Kaitlin Caudell, who had the duty in the clinic at present. “I don’t have a thing to complain about that isn’t my fault,” she sounded almost dejected.

  “Stop that,” Zach and Kim said almost in unison, surprising one another.

  “You made a mistake,” Zach shrugged. “Not the end of the world. Could have been, for you at least, but it wasn’t. Learn from it and move ahead.”

  “Yeah,” Kim was nodding. “You’re going to recover. Concentrate on how you will make sure it doesn’t happen again, Sergeant Lowery.”

  “Oh, God, not that again!” Amanda almost wailed. “You try one time, just one time to build people up, and this is the thanks you get!” she told Zach.

  “Yeah, I was thinking PFC Lowery myself,” Zach nodded with mock seriousness. “Corporal Lowery at best.”

  “Oh, aren’t you two a pair of cards,” Amanda shot back. “The Jack of Asses and the Queen of Snarks.”

  “She doesn’t look like a Jack to me,” Zach eyed Kim, who smacked him in the arm, laughing.

  “Are you saying you’re a Queen?” Amanda asked him.

  “Don’t I look it?” Zach mimed primping his hair and then doing makeup, making Amanda laugh again.

  “Stop making me laugh, idiot!” she cried, holding her abdomen. “It still hurts!”

  “Well, stop giving me material,” he chuckled, standing up and away from the bed. “I have to go, Amanda. But if you need anything, get someone to call me or X. We’ll see to it.”

  “Hey,” Kim complained. “I’m standing right here.”

  “Or her,” Zach added, grinning. “I really do have to go. See you guys later.” With that he made his way out, leaving Kim to lean against Amanda’s bed.

  “Well,” Amanda leaned back, eyeing her friend. “What’s going on there?”

  “Nothing, yet,” Kim’s face reddened. “Still testing the ice, so to speak.”

  “He’s a tough one to read,” Amanda agreed. “And scary as hell, too,” she added carefully.

  “Scary?” Kim frowned. “How?”

  “You really don’t see it, do you?” Amanda asked softly. “I thought it was just Bad Boy Fever, but you really don’t see it.”

  “See what?” Kim demanded.

  “Kim, that boy is dangerous, with a capital D,” Amanda kept her voice low. “And that isn’t a criticism. I love him to death, and Xavier, too. But they are two of the scariest fuckers I have ever seen, in real life or in the movies.”

  “They don’t seem scary to me,” Kim protested.

  “Then you aren’t looking,” Amanda replied. “I’m not trying to warn you off Zach, girl. I just want you to see what you’re getting into. That’s all.”

  Kim thought about that. Twice Zach had tried to talk to her about himself and she had stopped him, wanting to form her own opinion. Perhaps he had been trying to warn her?

  “I’ll see what happens,” she said hesitantly. “I don’t think he would hurt me,” she added carefully.

  “Of course not!” Amanda exclaimed at once. “He would absolutely kill someone that did hurt you! Just…be aware that he may have some issues. That’s all.”

  “Okay,” Kim nodded slowly, still clearly thinking. “Duly noted.”

  -

  “Still nothing on the radio?” Clay asked as he stepped into Operations. Leanne and Janice both shook their heads.

  “Completely quiet,” Leanne stated. “Our own checkpoints are still checking in, of course, but from the others, nothing.”

  “Any of our spots having problems?” Clay asked.

  “No. None of them are near the interstate and all were warned about the virus as soon as we knew what we were dealing with, so they’ve stayed isolated.”

  “I guess nothing from south of us, either,” he stated rather than asked.

  “Sorry,” Leanne shook her head again.

  “Sounds as if we’re back to being on our own, huh?” Clay smiled at them, but neither smiled back.

  “I had just gotten used to our not being alone and isolated,” Janice almost whispered, she was so quiet.

  “Well, maybe this won’t last much longer,” Clay tried to keep his tone light. “I hope the worst is over now and we can maybe start to recover.” The look Leanne gave him let him know that she, for one, wasn’t fooled.

  “Well, if you need me for anything give me a call,” he told them. “I’ve given Jose the day off for the next two days, making up for his having to cover for me. Greg will handle the night shift, but I’ll be available. Try to let him make the call of whether or not to alert me, though, since he’s in command for the evening shift.”

  “Will do,” Leanne promised.

  Clay left Building Two and started for home. He felt lighter than he had in a long time, working to let others take over some of the strain he had been handling alone. He had not been fair to Lainie, being so stressed out, and was determined not to do it again.

  -

  Faron Gillis stretched as he stepped outside into the cold. They were out of quarantine as of today. Once their blood tests had cleared, they were free to move around. Gillis had wisely decided to wait on Sanders to come to them, his written orders having instructed him to defer to Sanders as if he were still a First Lieutenant in the Army.

  That suited Gillis just fine, in all honesty. There were things happening he didn’t think he wanted to deal with if he could avoid it. Combat was one thing. Fighting a virus that could kill anywhere from six to eight people out of every ten was quite another. He’d stick to shooting, thanks.

  “Lieutenant,” Staff Sergeant Lowell said, pointing. Following the pointing finger, Gillis could see an approaching golf cart, two men on it. He recognized both, one being Sanders himself and the other being the Sheriff he had met what seemed like a year ago.

  “Morning, gentlemen,” Clay smiled as Greg brought their small ride to a halt.

  “Morning, sir,” both Gil
lis and Lowell replied at once.

  “Rule Number One,” Clay said with mock severity. “We do not refer to me as Sir, Lieutenant, or any derivative thereof. Okay?”

  “Got it s-, Sanders,” Gillis grinned as he caught himself.

  “Call me Clay, or if you must, Bossman,” Clay told him, rising from the cart and offering his hand. “I’m pleased to see you guys all made it clear. And we can definitely use the help if you’re ready to rejoin the living. Or at least what’s left of us,” he added with a sigh.

  “That bad, sir?” Lowell asked, not bothering to wince. He had been an NCO for a long time, and habits were hard to break.

  “It’s pretty bad,” Clay admitted. “We’ve had to shoot…well, we’ve had to do a lot to keep this place safe. I doubt some of us will ever feel clean again, to be honest. But it had to be done. We may be all that helps us get back up and off the ground when the dust settles. We can’t let this place be overrun.”

  “Those were in my orders from Captain Adcock,” Gillis was nodding. “Though I suspect you wrote them for him while he dictated over the radio?”

  “I did, yes,” Clay nodded. “At the time, Adcock believed he himself was sick. We haven’t heard from him or anyone else in over a week now, so he may well have been. We don’t know, and we can’t get into contact with anyone who does. We have contact with a handful of stations we set up right before this all started, but they are well away from the action and have remained isolated from this mess thus far.”

  “We had a little over company strength in all,” Gillis said quietly. “We’re less than a quarter of that between my patrol and the men with Sergeant Gleason. We can’t be all that’s left.” He paused before looking at Clay. “Can we?”

  “I would think not, but I have no idea,” Clay admitted. “Those who didn’t get sick may have fled. May have joined those going further south in hopes of escaping. I don’t know if that will work or not. Doctor Thatcher seems to think not but admits she doesn’t know. None of us knows much of anything right now.”

  “What do you want us to do, sir?” Gillis asked. “We’re supposed to attach our command to yours.”